UM Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2019-2020 Wikia
Your first semester at UM Your first semester at UM can be dizzying based on your previous experiences. Four courses, new preps, over a hundred new students, new colleagues, and new environs can be overwhelming. As soon as one arrives the email onslaught begins and even new faculty can see requests for time/expertise. Most departments hold off on major assignments or advising until later in your first year but your particular program may need you to start this Fall term. By the third week of the semester you will receive an email from Stacia requesting your Spring and Summer 2020 course schedule, followed soon thereafter by a request for your book orders. Please do not hesitate to ask your colleagues for advice on any of these issues. Many faculty intentionally stay away from campus one weekday for grading and research projects. The campus environment, with its blur of activity, can make it difficult to find needed quiet time for scholarly endeavors or long-term planning. Faculty/Staff Resources The University Faculty Staff/Resource page has some helpful links. Expect to encounter some mild challenges navigating the school's intranet platform, Banner: Don't hesitate to ask any of your colleagues for help Banner (where one monitor students, access grades, and enter monthly leave reports). The school's website is still a work in progress. Don't hesitate to ask your colleagues for advice. Information about UMOM The third floor has a "Faculty Break Room" complete with a vintage, 1950s refrigerator, microwave, sink, ice maker, and water filter/pitcher. There is a vacuum in the storage closet on the second floor to the right of the copier. Stacia does a lot of work for us that is behind the scenes and is not in her job description (takes out the garbage and recycling every week and vacuums the offices, unless you request that she not do so). The doors at UMOM typically lock about 7:30 p.m. Faculty can swipe in with their ID. However, any time you're leaving the building I'd take your swipe card; on nights with no classes in the building, it locks at 5:00. The doors unlock at 7:00 a.m. If you get locked out of the building after hours without your ID call the Campus Police 205.665.6155 and they can "buzz" you back in the building. This building and selective classrooms and offices can be cold year round: keep a sweater handy at all times. Built as an office building for Alabama Power in the 1970s, the University of Montevallo joined a consortium with the City of Montevallo and Shelby County to remodel the building for offices and classrooms in 2012. Some senior faculty members kiss the ground every day upon entering UMOM as they recall all-too-well our previous substandard accommodations. Advising Direct struggling students to the Learning Enrichment Center (which provides tutoring services free of charge) located in the Carmichael Library basement. Ask for Randi Tubbs. Contact the Registrar with any complicated or difficult questions. (205) 665-6040 registrar@montevallo.edu During the semester UM requests that faculty fill out electronically "Freshman Alert" notifications for first-year students who are struggling in class. By late September you may be getting emails informing you of advisees (that you have yet to meet, see, or hear of) who are not attending classes or in some type of academic distress. Campus Resources Direct students with poor writing skills to the Harbert Writing Center located on the third floor of Comer Hall. Walk-ins are welcome from 9-5. Counseling Services are available to students Monday through Friday, 8-5, in the lower level of Main Hall. 665.6245. After hours, students may call the Crisis Center at 205.323.7777. The Career Development Center is an underutilized campus resource. Encourage your students to make an appointment there. The CDC will conduct mock interviews, develop career preparation plans, and revise student resumes. Campus police: 205.665.6155. Faculty Activity Report Every January, UM faculty must fill out a Faculty Annual Review (lovingly called "the FAR"). The FAR is a document of your achievements of the calendar (not school year). As a result, your first FAR will be for Fall of 2019. Your FAR will consist of three major sections: Teaching, Service, and Research. We recommend as you start your UM career to save/document anything of significance or note in these three categories. Some faculty create an email folder called "Good Deeds" where they collect and store various service efforts (a guest lecture, working an orientation/registration session, doing local volunteer work). When January 2020 arrives and one has to document everything, it is convenient to have them all in one place. This can carry over to your "third-year" review and your eventual tenure and promotion file in your sixth year. Campus and BSS Events You'll need to have academic regalia for Founders' Day, on Thursday, October 10. You can rent regalia from the university. Morning classes will be cancelled on Founders' Day. This may affect your course schedules.Later that evening the annual "Life Raft Debate" takes place. NPR featured this in a program on This American Life c. ten years ago. Debate organizers often target younger faculty to defend their professions. During the semester the University and the Admissions Office conduct various recruitment events, like Fall Preview Day for prospective students (at least two per term). These events usually fall on a Saturday and your program may be asking you to attend to promote your program for a couple of hours (meeting with students and parents). The Chair usually announces early in the semester this schedule and asks for program "volunteers." Usually, your senior colleagues may do this before you but keep this in mind for a later semester. BSS usually hosts, at either Stacia's or a faculty member's home, start-of-the-year and end-of-the-year gatherings. Family are welcome. Attendance is not mandatory but it is a good chance to know your colleagues in an informal setting. Clark Hultquist organizes/promotes several times a year a "BSS Brown Bag" where BSS faculty present, in a casual format, new research, old research, proposed research, pedagogy, travel, current events, or any topic of interest. Faculty, Staff, Deans, and Provosts have been known to attend, plus students. These are not mandatory but do help create (Hultquist hopes!) some intra-departmental connections. Look for two or so Brown Bags per semester. Attendance and participation are not mandatory, especially if the talk conflict with one's schedule. Grants and Travel Money Grants of up to 2K are available for teaching initiatives and research projects. Consider applying for a grant during your first semester. The deadline is typically in late September. See: Grants and Travel Opportunities for Faculty BSS places a priority on getting junior faculty to conferences. Miscellaneous If you are interested in teaching or co-teaching a course with environmental content, speak with Susan Caplow - you can cross list to environmental studies, which helps with enrollment and is a lot of fun! On the advice of Clark Hultquist, John Bawden invited John Stewart, UM president, to speak in his Cold War Latin America course. Six months later Dr. Stewart invited Dr. Bawden to organize a university trip to Cuba. You never know to where conversations or connections will lead. UM is a small, interdisciplinary school. It is worth your while to develop personal relationships with the administration and with faculty from different colleges. They might contribute to your new course or help you with some other project. BSS abbreviations: BSS--Behavioral and Social Sciences The following are used for BSS majors/programs/courses: ES--Environmental Studies HIST--History POS--Political Science PSYC--Psychology SOC--Sociology SOSC--Social Science SWK--Social Work Chain of Command One of the benefits at UM is the relatively loose management structure with faculty usually having good relations with Chairs, Deans, Vice Presidents, the Provost, and the President. However, any "official" communication or requests should start with the Chair, either in email or in person, before one moves up the "chain of command" to higher positions of authority. Keeping the Chair "in the loop" is important for a) gaining support of the chair, b) getting counsel from the Chair about the nature of one's request, and c) avoiding the awkwardness of the Chair being asked later by his/her superior "what this request is about" when the Chair no idea this communication had been made. (And no, the current chair did NOT write this! :) ) (But a previous one did) 2019-2020 University Calendar 'Fall Semester 2019 ' Latest activity Photos and videos are a great way to add visuals to your wiki. Find videos about your topic by exploring Wikia's Video Library. __FORCETOC__ Category:Browse